6 things you should know about bodybuilding

 6 things you should know about bodybuilding

If you are new to the sport of bodybuilding, it is important to understand what your body is going through. Your muscles respond to different exercises in different ways, and there are reasons why athletes should tailor their training to their exact goals. As a beginner, it will be helpful to know some basic facts about your new sporting activity.

1

You don't have to be old to be strong.

Strength training involves training the muscles and nervous system. Together they make up the so-called neuromuscular system. Having big muscles does not guarantee that you will be stronger than someone with smaller muscles who is training to get stronger. It depends on how you train and your natural ability.

For example, in 2003, at the age of forty, Finnish Raija Koskinen set a world record for women's squats in the body weight category 44 kilograms. He squatted at an incredible 171 pounds, nearly four times his body weight.

Keep in mind that bodybuilders focus on higher reps with lighter weights, while strength athletes lift heavier weights with fewer repetitions.

two

Free weights activate more muscles than machine weights

Free weights often require muscles other than the target muscle group to hold the weight in motion. With machines, the weighted path is finite and controlled by the structure of the machine. As a result, fewer auxiliary muscles are needed to lift, stretch or push.

However, the weights on the machine do a great job of challenging your muscles. You can get the best variety and results if you do a combination of free weights and machine weights.

Steroid abuse has serious side effects

Anabolic steroids are used to increase muscle tissue growth and allow a person to train harder and recover quickly from exercise-related stress.2 Unfortunately, they are still widely used in non-competitive activities to increase size, weight, and strength. Most competitive sports have made the use of steroids illegal.

Anabolic steroids act like the male hormone testosterone. For this reason, the body tends to reduce its natural production of this and other important sex hormones when fed with exogenous steroids.

Side effects of hormonal disruption can include testicular shrinkage (atrophy) and male breast enlargement (gynecomastia) 3. In women, clitoral enlargement, breast reduction, excessive hair growth, and menstrual disorders may occur.

4

Decentralized exercise hurts

When you bend your arm to raise the dumbbells, the movement you make is "concentric." This occurs when the joint angle decreases and the target muscle, the biceps, becomes shorter. When you return the dumbbells to the starting position, you straighten the joint and stretch the muscles in what is called an "eccentric" movement.

In general, eccentric exercises cause more muscle damage and soreness than concentric movements. Some weight trainers emphasize exotic exercises because they believe they build muscle faster. If you're going to focus on a slow, eccentric contraction in your workouts, be prepared to get in a lot of pain.

5

It's hard to build muscle while losing fat

This is not impossible, but it is unlikely that you will lose body fat and build muscle at the same time. The body does not handle conflicting metabolic stages well; In this case, lose and win at the same time. The best you can hope for is maintaining muscle while losing fat.

Experienced bodybuilders tend to do this in two stages. First, they gain body mass, including fat, by overeating and training with weights. In the second phase, they lose fat and maintain muscle on a carefully prepared diet while continuing the muscle building program.

Weight training and aerobic exercise affect the heart differently

You may have heard the term "cardiomegaly". It is an unfavorable health condition in which the heart muscle, including the chambers of the heart, enlarges. This abnormal enlargement of the heart occurs because the heart muscle is starving.